


Regimental Red (1940)

by toujours_nigel



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Lipstick & Lip Gloss, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 16:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17328833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: 'They were neighbours.""Oh my God, they were neighbours!"ORHow Ralph and Bunny met outside class.





	Regimental Red (1940)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disenchanted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disenchanted/gifts).



The only thing you could say about the flat was that the rent was cheap, and the landlady the sort of old bat who wouldn’t notice what hours or company he kept. Not like Mr. Wright, who’d swivelled wildly between urging Bunny to settle down and accusing him more accurately than he knew of catting about. The secrets he and Phil could have told each other, Christ it turned Bunny’s stomach, really. Not that he could have afforded the flat without Phil, and didn’t it just show in this place, even with the little bump from teaching at the Station. Half his better things in mothballs in the kitchen loft, and the rest clashing _awfully_ with the shabby things that’d come with the place.

Phil had been a beast, of course, drearily suspicious and piggishly boring—were pigs boring?—and he’d snored unbearably. Bunny wasn’t going to miss him a bit, but he already missed the space, the windows and the light, and the odd gift of stockings or makeup. Phil’s colleagues thought he had a girlfriend; Bunny wasn’t entirely sure—all physical evidence aside—that Phil didn’t think it himself. He grumbled enough when Bunny refused to wear or return the stockings—he’d have to be mad, with how dear they were getting—and had to be appeased with frequent applications of lipstick. He liked how it smeared when Bunny’d had his mouth full.

Bunny didn’t. Not that Phil knew he liked any of it at all, because Phil was far more palatable when he was grovelling, but it was much better fresh. He’d seen a tube of the Elizabeth Arden... ah, there. Not as good as the new Rubinstein, but he was saving that one for when Phil came around again; he’d been shifting his things in last time, and Phil’d looked entirely too happy to see Bunny with his sleeves grimed and dust greying his hair like a flash-forward to the last stages of the Rake’s Progress. But the Arden was adequate and, there, the light in the bedroom wasn’t too bad, and he looked good, not at all as though he had spent the previous three days moving into this poky little place and then teaching.

Teaching, God, it was going to be stultifying, sitting in a room with a mass of Naval sincerity, acquainting them with the workings of radar, not a single interesting question among the lot, just a rustle of note-taking. He was grateful Peter had had Theo recommend him for it, but it was boring, boring, awful.

He needed a shave, to really bring out the Cupid’s Bow, and maybe some powder. It had been with his magazines, and they were still boxed-up in the entry-way—couldn’t call it a hall and be honest—but it was mostly on top, and not buried under the glossies, just wedged in a little awkwardly. Truth in advertising, perhaps, but he could have done with something a little bulkier than Rameses right then.

Nothing bulkier would slip into a pocket with his keys and fags and wallet, but oh well, he wasn’t stupid enough to carry it around on himself, even to a drag party. He hadn’t been to one in months, hardly could with Phil.

The light was much worse here, no point hanging his Dismorr where it wouldn’t catch the eye, though where would it really, unless he shoved it into the kitchen, or maybe over the bed, though he didn’t want to look at it half-awake or half-asleep. Decisions, decisions.

The door opened, and a man in Naval blues came in as if he owned the place—opened the door as if he owned the place—and stood staring at him, paling dramatically.

Bunny, who was the one who ought to be anxious and indignant, scurried to place him. Langham, layton, Lanyon! Right, Lanyon, Theo’s friend, and he hadn’t started shouting yet.

“Hullo, Lanyon.”

Lanyon stuck a hand out to shake automatically, realised Bunny wasn’t reciprocating, and said, awkwardly drawing it away, “Warren! I didn’t realise you were an actor.”

It was an out, feeble as it was, wasn’t that sweet of him? But the raking gaze had held and darted away, and now came back like a magnetised scrap of iron, tugged in obedient to its own nature.

“I’m not,” Bunny said, and took his time snapping the case shut and pocketing the powder. “You won’t catch me near that production Theo’s trying to get off the ground.”

“Shouldn’t think he’d lack for takers, but I’ll tell him for you if you’d like,” Lanyon said, and looked out the sliver of open doorway for a minute. Then he came in further, swinging the door shut. “Mrs. Turner gave me the key; I didn’t realise someone had moved in already.”

He clicked it down on the nearest surface, the arm of the only chair Bunny’d been able to fit in under the window, and had to bend to do it. By the time he came up again he’d fixed his face into a sombre professionalism that was nearly more offensive than him fainting from shock.

“I didn’t realise she’d given someone the key,” Bunny riposted, trying to make up his mind to be angry about it. He was, really, but it was difficult to keep up when his voice kept slipping into arch tones instead. “This could very nearly have been a disaster.”

“You seem awfully certain it isn’t,” Lanyon said, the corner of his mouth tilting up.

“You haven’t run shouting yet,” Bunny pointed out, and offered him the smile that made men realise they fancied him rotten, whether or not they’d suspected such an inclination beforehand.

Lanyon frowned. “Silly way to talk about something so serious.”

Oh for fuck’s sake, he was going to be one of _those_. How boring; if he’d wanted to be lectured at, Bunny’d have held still for Harry or Miles. “Silly thing to be so serious about, really. It’s hardly as though you saw me bent over a desk with my trousers off.”

“I’ve heard passable explanations for that,” Lanyon said, and oh, he had a nice smile, and a sense of humour somewhere under that starched collar.

“The Merchant Navy’s more adventurous than I’d thought,” Bunny ventured, “or did you mean school?” Of course Lanyon meant school, when did these people not, like it was a badge of honour to be beaten by boys a handful of years older than them for burnt toast or crooked ties. He’d laugh if it weren’t so tiresome.

“Medical appointments mostly,” Lanyon temporised. “I left my trunk in the kitchen, Mrs. Turner said that’d be fine.”

“I’ve been using it as a bit of a stepping stool,” Bunny said, though he’d been doing nothing of the sort. He wasn’t entirely certain why he’d said it, except it made Lanyon flick his gaze up and down in a distinct once-over. “I promise I wiped it down after.”

Lanyon nodded, and then kept standing in front of the door as the silence stretched. He wasn’t even looking at Bunny, or the darling cocktail cabinet he’d bought for a song only last Friday, just glumly at the floor. One of his hands kept clenching and unclenching. Wasn’t there some madly dashing story he’d heard about Lanyon at Dunkirk?

“I haven’t been lugging it around all over the place,” he added when an elucidation of some kind seemed necessary. “It’s where you left it.”

“I’d rather not compound my intrusions.”

Just as though Bunny might have a naked man tied up in the kitchen, between the stove and the fist-sized window.

Or.

“I don’t have silk stockings drying out over the sink,” he said, because Lanyon hadn’t run screaming, and he kept darting rabbity little glances, there and back again.

That got a frown, right on cue, but then Lanyon laughed and shook his head, disarranging his hair. “I think you’ve the guts for it, Warren. Now, my trunk?”

Bunny sighed and stood. “It’s _far_ too heavy for me to move.” He rather thought he’d brought that off well, just a hint of distaste in the way he stood aside and gestured at the kitchen. Poky little place, barely a scrap of entryway, and nothing like a proper bedroom at all, but what could you do with every possible room being eaten up the moment it hit the market?

It took ages to drag the trunk out of the kitchen. Bunny hadn’t touched it, even to climb on, but he’d surrounded it with boxes of his own, and spent a frantic fifteen minutes emptying and stacking them: dishes and bottles and a darling old set of cookie-cutters Auntie Ethel had left him as a snide. Tin of saffron he’d thought lost for certain, and Lanyon was frowning at him when he straightened with it held carefully to his chest. Not, unless Bunny missed his guess, angry in any dangerous way, but glumly confused as though he couldn’t make sense of a man with lipstick on and spices clutched to his heart, when the answer should have been obvious enough.

But he only said, “Is that all?” and tilted his head to gesture Bunny out of the way.

Bunny got out of the way. The trunk was heavy, and Lanyon was neither particularly tall, nor sturdy for his height, and he had no desire to be pressed into service or knocked about if Lanyon dropped it, as seemed only too likely.

Lanyon didn’t, which would have at least been entertaining, or drag it or flail around or even posture—unlike _some_ people Bunny could name—as though he was wonderfully macho and found it light as a feather. He treated it instead like a difficult job that he knew he could manage, like he was used to being a porter and knew how to lift. Well, it was _his_ trunk, after all, and maybe he did haul things around quite a bit. Bunny was sure he didn’t know what sailors were accustomed to, temporary uniform notwithstanding. The class he was teaching seemed dourly pragmatic en masse, and he still didn’t think any of the others would have balanced their load on an angle at the threshold and said, “Wipe that off before you open the door,” and handed him a hankie.

But Lanyon was friends with Theo, and at least a little in his confidence. It was as much of an advertisement as Bunny needed, added to his nonchalance and darting glances. He left a neat lip-print in one corner before trying to rub it off in earnest, wondering whether to go for the mirror in the bedroom or keep the hankie or simply duck behind the door as he opened it.

“Here,” Lanyon said, peremptory, flicking the handkerchief back and setting to work like Bunny was a five year-old with a smudged face. He shifted a little, and his other hand came up to cup Bunny’s head and hold him in place.

Well.

Bunny stayed put a few seconds after Lanyon had released him, and then looked up through his lashes like he’d spent a week practising at sixteen after watching _Nell Gwynn_ , and perfected since. “Am I clean now?”

“You’ll do,” Lanyon told him, and folded his hankie into a pocket square with the red smudge still showing. Coward. “Thank you, Warren, I’ll see you in class.”

“It’s Bunny.”

“Is it? Then it’d better be Ralph.” Safe not Alf, _not_ that he’d expected different.

“Alright, Ralph. I’ll see you on Thursday.”


End file.
